Rough Giraffe wrote:So, was Sentios not going to respond? Was kinda looking forward to his perspective. :\

No, but I skimmed it at didn't see anything particularly alarming. Since getting back into the work force I've joined the ranks of my fellow over worked Americans and these 12 hour work days don't leave much time for studying politics with a fine tooth comb to spot the hidden lies. I'm stuck with only the obvious lies and snake oil promises to bicker over.

@Sentios: Glad to see you have found a job. It's pretty odd that you're complaining about the hours, however, during a time when something like 23 million people can't find a job.

Q.U. wrote:All I see are two bad choices, where the ridiculousness, stupidity, and outright disingenuousness of one of the candidates is more surreal than the others'.

I absolutely agree; Obama's so full of shit.(lol.)

@Mir@k: That was pretty decently humorous, I have to admit. However, you kind of missed my point.

Health care: Still broken, and their plan is essentially 10 years of taxes to pay for about 5 years of health care. It doesn't do anything to control costs, which means that the prices stay high while giving people the illusion of being less expensive. That's not a fix. That just means people pay more taxes while receiving the same level of health care.

Education: There has been nothing done about this. Charter schools and Private schools still outperform Public schools with less funding, and Public schools are asking for more funding from the government. Meanwhile, test scores are still pretty terrible. He keeps talking about it, but he hasn't done anything to fix it.

Jobs: Sure, the "official" unemployment rate has gone back down. But as we all know, that number does not account for people who were previously counted but stopped looking for work, and so are no longer counted. I prefer to use the U6 unemployment rate when I discuss these things, which usually paints a much more accurate picture. Also, economists say that we could be seeing another recession, which could compound an already bad problem. He's been doing next to nothing to actually solve anything, and the stimulus package was supposed to help but apparently didn't. Not fixed. Patched. The wound is still bleeding and it might get infected.

Immigration: It's still a problem. I know this is a soft spot for you, but if either of our countries are going to be better off in the long run, we must be prepared to discuss it honestly. Your country sucks, so you want to move to America. Maybe the solution is not so much to let thousands of people cross the border every year as it is to work towards improving living conditions, etc. back there? I would very much like to see a time when people in Mexico are not slave to crime and the cartels, and actually take back their land from those who just want power. They should be able to love their country and not even want to move elsewhere.

I can already feel people glaring at me (more fiercely than normal) for that last bit, even if I am trying to help. I think this is a good place to stop for now.

I am not sure what you mean to be honest, Are you saying that the solution is to let your country intervene? Because if so, that is a pretty good idea! I give you my blessing. If what you said was instead just the equivalent of "maybe you guys should go back and 'solve your problems' ", then i don't know what to say to you. I really doubt whatever efforts may be applied to stop inmigrants will be succesful. If anything they'll only get more violent and bloody, all courtesy of people like the self proclaimed border patrols that love to yell America is the bestest place in the whole wide world to live, and then wonder why other humans want in on a piece of that glory.

But i concede you that that particular topic should stop because you don't really know anything about mexico.

But wouldn't that mean that people who have full-time, low wage jobs would be forced by the government to work less and by extension earn less to solve a problem that they did not cause, when they've presumably got a family to feed?

Even I think that is too much government intervention, and isn't likely to really 'fix' the problem. I think raising capital gains taxes and other taxes to encourage the rich to invest in people rather than 'short term' investments like securities and bonds would work best at improving our economy.

Currently, a significant fraction of full-time employee compensation is non-monetary benefits like health insurance. This distorts the labor market, making it cheaper to overwork full-time employees while making do with no-benefit part-time workers wherever possible (even if it decreases performance a bit) than to have the balance between part- full- and overtime employees that best matches skill sets to their demand. How to fix this? Decouple health insurance from employment with a national system like in the rest of the developed world. Not only would it remove that distortion from the labor market, it would improve labor mobility because people's health would no longer be tied to a particular job (the Obamacare mandate reduces but does not eliminate this problem).

DaCrum wrote:Even I think that is too much government intervention, and isn't likely to really 'fix' the problem.

Why is it 'too much' more than any other law put in place telling an employer what they may and may not demand of their employees? It would work on in the sense that if the employer doesn't want to lose productivity they'll train and hire unemployed people to make up the difference. It's not something they could escape by moving their money around the world either.

The only people who really lose out in the short term are people who are basing their lifestyle on overtime pay, which is about as responsible as people who base their lifestyle on availability of credit.

There are actually business environments where the value of capital is so high that employers will pay whatever it takes to get it up and running ASAP. In such cases, the workers are typically highly skilled and in short supply, and their numbers are the limiting factor. They often work a lot more than "full time" and make a lot of money. Also, many medical professionals work more than sixty hours per week to meed their fields' demand. Capping work hours for these people would harm employees, employers, and those served by the businesses involved. And in normal situations, capping work hours would introduce a lot of scheduling hassle whenever unforeseen situations impact workers' availability. Overtime exists to discourage employers from forcing employees to work excessive hours, but the availability of overtime labor lets things run more smoothly than a hard cap. Keep in mind that a cap on work hours would also be a cap on how much employees can work and earn. This is different from (say) the minimum wage situation because a work hour cap would restrict economic freedom that helps society in many ways, while minimum wage laws restrict economic freedom to prevent wage slavery, which is rather bad for society. It's a question of costs, benefits, and reasonable regulation.

Mir@k wrote:Are you saying that the solution is to let your country intervene? Because if so, that is a pretty good idea! I give you my blessing. If what you said was instead just the equivalent of "maybe you guys should go back and 'solve your problems' ", then i don't know what to say to you.

I had in mind a sort of 75/25 combination of the two, where our government and yours deliberates on possible solutions; we do most of the planning and execution; and the citizenry assists with rebuilding their society in the post-nuclear apocalyptic endgame--the latter might also provide some well-paying jobs.

I'm just kidding about the nuclear thing, of course. But a resolution where we go to war with organized crime is probably not going to end well for a lot of people. After all, many of the people who work in the cartels have family members that are basically being held hostage; we would need a way to prevent collateral damage while still achieving a positive outcome.

The problem is in how one might go about it. If America wants to help take back Mexico from the crime lords, I can't see very many other courses of action than to kill them, suddenly and without warning. There would have to be a swift, concise, coordinated assault on them with the assistance of the Mexican government. I would have no problem with Obama, Romney, or any President sending drone strikes to--what do they have, mansions or something?--where these guys live and take them out in one go. I'm sure you guys would be happy if a few Crime Lords and their families ceased to exist all at once.

But even if you agree with me that this would be the best course of action, good luck getting such a resolution to pass the House and Senate. People are extremely squeamish about the subject of murder--even when said murder might involve saving saving thousands if not millions of lives, or even an entire nation. Congress does not make those decisions lightly. Plus, the ignorants on both side would just say we're pushing some Warmongering/Imperialist agenda--Make Love Not War, etc--or something along those lines, and then everyone would be afraid of pushing the issue. I doubt there are very many politicians who would ever go that far. Too bad I'm not in charge, right?

(canned laughter)

Mir@k wrote:I really doubt whatever efforts may be applied to stop inmigrants will be succesful.

Realistically, you don't try to stop illegal immigration]. If you fix the root causes the problem basically resolves itself.

This is only something I've considered recently, by the way; you may recall that before I was hard anti-immigration. Having considered the issue, I'm still against illegal immigration, but I understand the root causes slightly better now and want to do something about it. I never really thanked you for that, did I? Thank you.

Mir@k wrote:If anything they'll only get more violent and bloody, all courtesy of people like the self proclaimed border patrols that love to yell America is the bestest place in the whole wide world to live, and then wonder why other humans want in on a piece of that glory.

We Americans don't really get a strong taste of what you guys go through South of the border that makes you do what you do to come here. There's very little incentive (for lack of a better term) that makes us actively want to seek out bad information. We're much more easily placated by powerful figureheads and silver-tongued politicians and Will Smith movies, etc. to want to do that. If only there were some way of bringing it to widespread attention in the US that would make people actually give a rat's ass for Christ's sake, maybe something could be done, policy-wise.

I'm sorry I can't offer more to you, but dammit people are too fucking lazy and ignorant.

Mir@k wrote:By comic strip do you mean just join all the pics together or also include the text in my posts?I'll do it no biggie.

I don't think you need a written explanation between the panels if you join them up. You would if they were poorly made, but I think they are clear and explicit enough. You might only want to make the background colour a bit darker so that the piss pool is more visible. Took me a moment to notice it the first time.

Rough Giraffe wrote:I absolutely agree; Obama's so full of shit.

See, the problem with your country in my honest opinion is that you utilise the most trivial versions of FPTP (First Past The Post) system. Which has this nasty tendency (pure mathematics actually) that makes it always lead the politics into a two-party system eventually. That's just how it's designed. A two party system is ultimately bad for the country, because most of the people won't feel like they have a candidate/party that they can support who has a realistic chance of winning (vote 3rd party and change the USA? Good one mate), and these people lose interest in voting (hence the low voting attendance). And the rest of those that do vote, mostly vote strategically, rather than by favourites, more often voting against a candidate they dislike instead of supporting one that they do like. Which spells an utter failure for something claimed to be a democratic process. Not to mention how susceptible that system is to gerrymandering, disproportional representation, and the spoiler effect.

The problem is in how one might go about it. If America wants to help take back Mexico from the crime lords, I can't see very many other courses of action than to kill them, suddenly and without warning.

Now see, I consider that a short-sighted idea. The amount of organised crime in Mexico is mostly caused by the fact that normal average people can't get jobs and earn a living legally. Now sure, some of them are the scum of earth, but they would not be able to operate if most people had a better job alternative than smuggling drugs and weapons. And as long as there are willing people to recruit, no matter how many times you kill off the bosses, new bosses will take their place. You'd have to kill off all of the foot soldiers too, and that would make up for one nasty Mexican genocide. Americans are always so quick to shoot first, then think. You killed Bin Laden, congrats, did Al Qaeda fall apart yet? No? Then what are you doing wrong? Not killing enough people, clearly. You need more bombs, more drones, and more genocide until all those who might even think to fight against you are dead. Good luck with that. I prefer the more subtle methods of manipulating the demographics and economy of countries to discourage a certain behaviour. It's just like killing Somalian pirates. Yes, because all of them just want to be pirates so badly. See, even South Park figured that one out. These people are usually desperate, and striving to survive. Killing them is not fixing the problem. Give those Somalian pirates, or Mexican small-time criminals a proper job, and earnings, and they will gladly stop doing the kind of a job that is very likely to get them killed, not to mention morally questionable.

Realistically, you don't try to stop illegal immigration]. If you fix the root causes the problem basically resolves itself.

See? Here you have the right frame of mind. Go for the root problem, not the symptoms. High crime rate is not the root problem. Just as humans being evil deep down inside is not the problem. They aren't. There are driving forces that make them chose one path over the other. Change the driving forces and a whole new picture emerges.

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I was being sarcastic when i told you it was a good idea, because i know how much of an extremist you can be by reading your posts ruff, and reading this one was not the exception; Look, where i was expecting to see some plan for the integration of mexicans into american society in a way that would be more benefical (because proposing the entirety of an illegal immigrant population is a cancer to your country is genuinelly stupid) instead of having some fat redneck scum shooting at defenseless, unarmed and often miserable people, You're proposing a military advance in my country against a blurry objective that a) you don't know anything about (and the main proof of this is your proposal of our governments working together right off the bat without remembering a crippling problem in that sentence, see below) and b) may or may not be there, with the excuse that everything at the long run would be better for both countries, but i find that sentence too white for my liking. For me to believe such a ridiculous proposition i'd need to see your hands and confirm they have dirt in it, because you show them everyday and they're still 100% white, so in reality ruff, you have very little to thank me about.

In case you don't know, mexicans are strange, borwn, short alien little creatures scientifically tested and confirmed of possessing similar capabilities of holding and shooting weapons as your race does. We've been shooting at each other willingly and unwillingly for many decades now. Countless of cartel "leaders" fall everyday (after all, some peope are starting to notice that crime is not punished, and that it brings more profit to them, and that it allows them to shoot and rape, and that it's better than earning an honest pay, and it's very easy for a miserable 16 year old guy without the papers needed to get a simple job to gather a few of his ghetto thug friends, ambush a few women of the ghetto, demand ransom but raping and killing them regardless, and hanging a sign over your 5-man party and claim you're Los Diablos or something and BAM, two weeks later you got your new headline! "Cartel leader falls! Your government is on a ROLL!!"), and that is not getting us anywhere because our presidents always happen to be a crime lord's bitch, a crime lord's associate, or flat out a crime lord themselves, like our current president, who against the wishes of ALL mexicans he's somehow managed to be the victor these elections, how's that for a scale on the intensity of this problem ruff? Do you honestly think this is something common people in such a situation can solve? Suddenly people start disappearing in an increased frequency everywhere through the republic, governors everywhere demand that people stop telling each other what is going on via the internet because "that creates false rumors", when what they're trying to do is stop people from using the last method of true information that the government can't place it's hands onto yet: The internet. People are panicked because unlike you americans, our concept of patriotism is limited to our pride for menial things, such as brewing ale. We don't have a second ammendment or whatever that allows us to prepare ourselves to defent our homes or whatever, it is vital for you to understand this, to understand that we ARE different, and that we are NOT as capable of solving this as much as you think we are.

See, when i told you we should stop because you know very little about mexico i mean it with the most respect possible because you yourself said it very well; Americans rarely ever care about anyone other than themselves, and country-wise that is more or less expected (in other words, I UNDERSTAND AND DON'T BLAME YOU), but i think it should be different when said country is a neighboring country with a high level of violence that has a leak of population that gravitates NOT ONLY TOWARDS AMERICA, but ANYWHERE where Mexicans may be able to FLEE, but which most appealing option is the place where people are doing their best to advertise themselves as the promised land (a.k.a. America), people on the southern parts of the republic prefer to flee to guatemala and cross towards brazil, which is still shit but argentina is closer, and they're not as stuck up as you guys are, but here's the thing; Where mexicans suffer the most, America is the closest country they can run towards to. I honestly think you're confusing us with a brown, lamer, poorer and dumber version of america, where apparently people can be a force of considerable strenght, something we most certainly are not.

You say that you're sorry you can't "offer" more to me, but i didn't even want you to offer me anything from the start (the one that brought the immigration problem on the table was you, i'm hoping you didn't bring it on because i am a mexican but i think that was a heavy influence, because the previous post i had made was adressing things that had nothing to do with that particular topic but i digress, my point is you brought it up first) because to be honest i understand why people want to flee and are actively doing so towards the places where people scream "we are so happy and so safe and so rich and so healthy and so fine". I am the one who has nothing to offer to you, because i have no links to give you to back up any of my arguments.

There is nothing that serves americans have a better awareness of mexico's problems? Well, that is interesting. I thought a huge influx of mexicans leaving their country to get into yours, despite the more-often-than-not inhuman treatment your people gives to my people, would raise a few questions.

Doesn't your kind ever wonder why so many people prefer to actively risk their lives putting themselves, on their own volition, under traveling conditions similar to the ones jewish people experienced at the hands of the nazis, why they choose to go on almost certain death marches, why they prefer to try their luck avoiding the bullets of some extremely dense and morally idiotic white trash, almost guaranteeing being shot at some point, why these people prefer to risk being ambushed by bandits and organ traders halfway through the trip because their driver sold them off, and why these people prefer to be subject to your whips, to your discrimination, to your cruelty and indifference, before returning to their country? Havent a single one of your kind asked yourselves "what can be so bad in their country that they'd much rather go on a trip that has a very high chance of killing them instead of struggling to live there and fighting for their country?" If they have, but discarded the thought anyway because it's a matter too big for the common american to digest, then they're normal people choosing to ignore one problem in order to retaliate with force against poor people under the pretense of "sorry that you guys are living in some kind of hell, but there's nothing we can do for you, away with you now", which will not stop desperate, poor, and helpless folks to try and live a life without violence, because all of those people wanting to go to the us do not go there with the malice intent of damaging your country (not only orange-sellers that look stereotipically brown and wearing a sombrero are mexicans without papers, you also have people with degrees in there, architects, chefs, builders, even doctors who were unfortunate enough to be treated like shit in the us embassy, a common thing, these people have so much to give, and your people are not letting them out of an ignorant and racist concept of patriotism), all these people want is for their suffering to stop, even if it means living in a world where everybody bloody hates your guts, because even then, life conditions are much better. Illegal immigration is a problem, that is undeniable, but your country is doing stupid things to counter-arrest this problem from your side (so far, border patrols, fences, walls, dumb, idiotic things that makes it look as if you were protecting yourselves from wild animals), and is not helping in areas that would be more helpful, like sending some surgeons over here to extract the 3km wooden poles out of the mexican based US ambassador's asses making it so difficult for mexicans over here to go to your country legally.

I hate this violence, and i'm hating that america's way of wanting to solve the mexican immigration problem is through more violence, instead of finally realizing that shooting people and building a wall around your borders will do little to stop DESPERATE people from trying to find a better place to live. If anything, as i said in my previous post, this desperation will escalate into hatred against americans in the border patrol, and then things will REALLY start getting ugly because when the american government realizes that the percentage of american's being sent their bullets back in the border is increasing, then your government is finally going to pay attention, in the most macabre of contexts, and with the history of your country, i fear what the solution of a candidate *you* support would be. With this last paragraph going back to your elections, It's somewhat a dual-racist fear, but we have every reason to experience it don't we? Both the side of America that adopts the perspective of generalizing all immigrants as a threat, and we because we're left with little choice on what to do. All sides point guns towards us, but if my people avoid yours the day they arrive to your country, they live in a better place, if they avoid the bullets here, they have to repeat the routine everyday until they get hit. I'm not letting you blame my people of ignorance and laziness when they have very little means of correcting that, because as much as we are ignorants, so are your people, and so are you.

Valhallen wrote:Keep in mind that a cap on work hours would also be a cap on how much employees can work and earn.

Only in the sense that they couldn't just put in more time in on the job, they could still earn more by pursuing a better paying job. Consider it incentive to improve to improve job skills. It would have to be implemented smartly, but it's not like there's no incentives beyond tackling unemployment to the idea.

Just a quick bit. Mexico's problems wouldn't be as bad if the US drug demand weren't pumping billions of dollars into Mexican organized crime. If common drugs were legalized (and carefully regulated), major corporations would be able to fight drug cartels economically (an activity which they are very good at). Until the outside funding is removed, hunting down leaders is a stopgap measure at best, because the skills needed (like those for being a CEO) are really easy to come by. Leaders can spring up overnight if there is a demand, so removing the demand for drug cartels should be a main consideration on the US side.